Western Mass. Pioneers drop second straight match to Phantoms at home

The Republican file photoChris Roswess of the Pioneers fights for the ball against a Seacoast United player.

LUDLOW – For the second straight outing, the Seacoast United Phantoms got the better of the Western Mass. Pioneers at home.

Robert McLarney scored a pair of goals as the Phantoms scored three unanswered to hand the Pioneers a 3-1 loss at Lusitano Stadium.

The win drew the Phantoms (5-5-2) even with the Pioneers (5-3-2) with 17 points in the Premier Development League Northeast standings.

The Pioneers have played two fewer games than the Phantoms, but they need to stop the bleeding beginning Saturday night when they play New Hampshire at Portsmouth.

“Tomorrow is a very big game and these are obviously swing games because the points either team earns, the other doesn’t,” said Pioneers assistant coach Tim Larocca, filling in for head coach Joe Calabrese. “Tomorrow we have to respond because we’ve dropped two results in a row to them and it can’t be a third. We’re up against it a little bit.”

A solid start to the game was undone in the final 12 minutes of the first half as the Phantoms scored twice over that span to take a 2-1 lead into the locker room.

“They’ve started to find their form in the past couple of weeks with a couple of good results, and we’ve been on a downhill,” Pioneers midfielder Thomas McNamara said. “But we can easily rebound tomorrow and come out one and one for the weekend, which isn’t bad.”

T.J. Popolizio broke the ice for Western Mass. in the 26th minute, snapping a scoreless drought of 134 minutes against the Phantoms. It was the fourth good chance for the Pioneers up to that point.

McNamara just missed high from the top of the box in the seventh minute, then Popolizio and Kyle Clancy had chances on a loose ball in front of an empty net, but could not poke it in.

Taylor Gorman received a nice lay-off pass from Sam DeMello in the 18th minute, but his shot skidded just wide of the far post. Popolizio could not miss on his bid, however, as Gorman sent him in on a beautiful diagonal pass into the box.

Popolizio put one touch on it and drilled it by Seacoast United goalie John Dawson.

But the match went south for the Pioneers after that.

Chris Tsonis, who scored the game’s lone goal in last week’s 1-0 win for the Phantoms, tied the game in the 34th minute when he used his upper body to hold off a pair of defenders on the left side of the box then shot to the far post, catching the side netting just inside the post.

McLarney broke the tie in the 42nd minute. The forward was given way too much space and teed up a shot from 30 yards out that beat Colin O’Donnell diving to his left.

“We talked about it at halftime where we dropped off a bit too much and that we got to get a guy out front to at least slow the ball,” Larocca said. “This is simple stuff that these guys know, but we had a couple of breakdowns in the back and it cost us big-time.”

The Phantoms dropped five players to the back line in the second half and did not allow the Pioneers’ offense much room to operate.

In the 80th minute, McLarney iced the game. Tsonis had the ball in front of the goal and drew the defense to him before passing it wide right to McLarney for the wide-open finish that finished off the Pioneers.